What does “vaurien” mean in French?

Il pensait avoir gagné, mais il avait déjà perdu

WhatsAppGmailTelegramEmail

A2 French listening practice · French from France · Picked for people who know a little

💡 Did you know?
un vaurien
French old-school insult
“a good-for-nothing, a rascal,” literally “worth nothing”

Un vaurien is a good-for-nothing, a rascal. Read it slowly and it explains itself: vau-rien is vaut rien, “is worth nothing,” from the verb valoir. It sounds a little old-fashioned, more like a grandparent scolding a troublemaker than a modern insult, which makes it handy for teasing. The feminine vaurienne exists but is rare.

French has other compressed sentence-words like this, such as un je-ne-sais-quoi (“a certain something”) and un m’as-tu-vu (“a show-off,” from “did you see me?”). In this dubbed scene a bully gets warned off with laisse Peter tranquille (“leave Peter alone”) and a final ce n’est pas ton jour de chance, vaurien, “it’s not your lucky day, you little rascal.”

How common are the words?

How common are the words in this A2 French listening practice video?

88.8%
of words are in the top 2,000 most common French words
Most of the words in this video are common French words.

How common in written French

86.9%
Top 1,000
88.8%
Top 2,000
95.3%
Top 5,000

How common in spoken French

90.1%
Top 1,000
98%
Top 2,000
100%
Top 5,000
👄 Words for talking
This video uses words people often say in French.

Harder words in this video

These words are harder than A2. Here is what they mean.

amenez
1×
Not in top 5,000People say this a lot
benne
1×
Not in top 5,000
dumpster
coopère
1×
Not in top 5,000
decker
1×
Not in top 5,000
tool brand
vaurien
1×
Not in top 5,000
scoundrel
c'est pas de chance
1×
bad luck; unlucky

Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · Lexique 3.83 (spoken). These numbers are close, not perfect.

See French from France Videos You Can Understand on Reelang

Open French page